Contact Information

Education

Courses Regularly Taught

HIS 357: History of Medicine HIS 351: The Scientific Revolution HIS 517: History and Theory HIS 525: Readings in the Cultural History of Science

Research Interests

My research interests include the cultural history of science and medicine during the Renaissance and early modern periods; the Scientific Revolution of the 16th and 17th centuries (especially the relations among language, religion, society, natural philosophy, medicine, and natural history); images, visualization, and technologies of the “literal” in early modern science; the history of the body and sexuality; the role of metaphor and narrative in science; and the function of technologies of communication in the production and dynamics of knowledge and culture. In addition, I am also interested in medical humanities, literature and medicine, and the narrative construction of illness and the physician-patient relationship.

Current Research

I am working on the following projects: Figuring Science: Metaphor, Narrative, and the Cultural Location of Scientific Revolutions

"The Word of God and the Languages of Man: Interpreting Nature in Early Modern Science and Medicine. Volume 2, England, 1640-1670.

“Imagining Nature: Technologies of the Literal and the Scientific Revolution.”

Selected Publications

"The Word of God and the Languages of Man: Interpreting Nature in Early Modern Science and Medicine. Vol. 1, Ficino to Descartes." Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1995.

"Does the Body Matter? The University at Buffalo Sesquicentennial Symposium." Special Issue of Configurations 5:2 (Spring 1997). Guest Editor, James J. Bono.

"From Paracelsus to Newton: The Word of God, the Book of Nature, and the Eclipse of the Emblematic World View." In Newton and Religion: Context, Nature, and Influence. Ed. James Force and Richard H. Popkin. Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1999. Pp. 45-76.

I’m part of a burgeoning group of faculty and graduate students across CAS departments interested in “Science Studies.” Among affiliated faculty: Jim Swan and Joseph Conte (English); Don Pollock (Anthropology); and Andreas Daum (History).We hope to organize into an academic Center or Program at UB.